[HN Gopher] Transitioning Away from Google Services ___________________________________________________________________ Transitioning Away from Google Services Author : jboogie77 Score : 20 points Date : 2023-03-22 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (oppositeinvictus.com) (TXT) w3m dump (oppositeinvictus.com) | iLoveOncall wrote: | Almost none of those are viable alternatives. They're either not | free when Google is, a lot more expensive, or have a lot less | features. | | And recommending Microsoft products or apps owned by the CCP as | an alternative to Google products is simply ridiculous. | | I would understand going from Google to open source products, | even though I am not an open source fanatic, but going from | Google to another privately owned for-profit company makes no | sense. Is this written by a guy bitter to have been laid of by | Google or something like this? | warner25 wrote: | I too am laughing at the suggestions to swap Google for | Microsoft stuff. | jrockway wrote: | I am probably too far gone to be taken seriously, but my | startup got acquired and we had to switch from Google to | Microsoft and I actually kind of like the Microsoft stuff. It | has dark mode! If you're going to be Last Name, First Name at | an 80k employee company, at least your calendar can be | visually pleasant to look at. | iLoveOncall wrote: | I think it's totally fine if your reason for wanting to | move away from Google is not ideological or privacy- | related. | | "It's better" is a good reason to switch. But this is | clearly not the case in the original article. | warner25 wrote: | Sure, I don't think Microsoft's stuff is necessarily | terrible. At work I've always been fully immersed in | Windows and Office, as both a regular user and IT guy, and | it's fine for that. I was even using Windows and Edge on my | personal laptop as recently as 2021. But if you're trying | to get away from Google as a soulless mega-cap corporation | that wants to trick you into giving up more of your data, | switching Microsoft doesn't seem like much of a switch. | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | > They're either not free when Google is, a lot more expensive, | or have a lot less features. | | I'm perfectly willing to pay for a decent service, especially | if it appears to actually incentivize the company to care about | my my interests. | iLoveOncall wrote: | I fully agree with that, my only point is that they should | not be presented are equivalent alternatives | jboogie77 wrote: | who said they are equivalent? | [deleted] | binaryanomaly wrote: | All easy except: | | - Youtube --> can't get around it | | - Maps --> in few cases where apple maps is just not good enough | (depends on where you live) | | Don't miss anything else 1sec! | jboogie77 wrote: | yea theres no way to get around youtube. I think theres stuff | like peertube but its not the same | pedalpete wrote: | - Docs/Slides -> Canva - Sites -> Canva - Photos -> potentially | in the future... Canva | | - Browser -> Brave or Firefox | | I'm curious if people think it is suggested to move away from | Chromium completely, or just Google's Chrome? | berdon wrote: | A few opinionated differences: | | - Mail -> Fastmail | | - Search -> Kagi | | - Photos -> Google Photos (sorry, but...it's fantastic) | | - Docs/Sheets/Slides -> Native/Non-Web Microsoft Office | | - Keep/Notes -> Logseq | | - Chrome -> Firefox or Orion | | - News -> Hackernews | | - Sites -> Ghost + Digital Ocean | | - Authenticator -> Authy | thefounder wrote: | Google apps/workspace -> zoho | AlphaCerium wrote: | What exactly do you mean by "Sites -> VS Code"? Do you mean | create the webpage from scratch yourself, because a big part of | Google Sites is that the site is also hosted for you, and I | don't think asking a user of Google Sites to create a webpage | and host it themselves is the best idea. | berdon wrote: | I've updated my comment with what I use for hosting my site. | But my intent was what you gleaned. | | Edit: Fastmail even offers website/hosting as a part of your | email service. I'm just biased being a developer and cry at | the thought of sites or wordpress - knowing all too well that | those products bring real value to many, many people. | jboogie77 wrote: | agree with authy. would switch if i wasnt lazy | 4d66ba06 wrote: | A reminder for everyone that Authy allows multi device and | backups in case you lose your phone. From my understanding | Google Authenticator doesn't offer either of these. | warner25 wrote: | There's no mention of Google Voice. I've been hooked on it for 12 | years, with my primary phone number being a Google Voice number | for the last 10 years. | | I've started using a lot of the suggested applications and | services - Firefox, DuckDuckGo, Flickr - instead of Google's in | recent years. I'm still using Gmail because changing my primary | email seems like it would be a pain, but at least I can see that | there are some strong competitors for email. Voice, on the other | hand, seems like a pretty unique offering. | berdon wrote: | Fwiw, I switched from gmail two years ago and it was relatively | painless. It took a couple hours and there were a handful of | websites that didn't allow changing emails (as usernames) but | otherwise it was fine. And worth it to no longer get spam. | esnowrackley wrote: | Voice was a mainstay for me for a long time. The closest | replacement I could find was a service called OpenPhone[1]. | It's designed as a VoIP service for small business teams, but | I'm finding it works great as a solo voice/text option. I was | able to port the Voice number over. | | [1] https://www.openphone.com/ | alexwennerberg wrote: | Any ideas for Calender alternatives? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-22 23:01 UTC)